This invention relates to a rock drill handle.
Considerable attention has been paid in recent times to the detrimental physiological effects of vibration from machines such as hand-held rock drills. Research has shown that prolonged exposure to the vibrations generated by hand-held rock drills can lead to so-called xe2x80x9cwhite finger,xe2x80x9d HAVS (hand/arm vibration syndrome) or Raynaud""s disease, in bad cases, resulting in loss of or diminished feeling and possibly even eventual gangrene.
It would clearly be desirable to provide for diminished transmission of vibrations to the operator of a rock drill.
According to the present invention, there is provided a rock drill handle which is connectable to a hand-held rock drill and which includes vibration damping means to damp the transmission of at least back and forth vibrations from the drill to the hand of an operator gripping the handle.
In the preferred embodiments, the handle comprises operatively forwardly located connecting means connectable to the backhead of the drill, an operatively rearwardly located handle section and at least one linking section which extends rearwardly from the connecting means to the handle section, the linking section including vibration damping means.
The vibration damping means may act between respective portions of the, or each, linking section which are movable relative to one another in a back and forth direction. Typically, the vibration damping means comprises a plurality of resilient damping pads. These damping pads may be made of materials selected to damp out vibrations at different frequencies.
The vibration damping means may also comprise one or more hydraulic or pneumatic dampers and/or one or more active dampers to provide a positive damping action in response to vibrations generated during drilling with the rock drill.
In certain embodiments of the invention in which the handle section extends transversely from the, or each linking section, the handle section may include a hand-rip portion which is gripped in use by the operator and which is capable of side-to-side movement relative to the linking section.
The terms xe2x80x9crearward,xe2x80x9d xe2x80x9cforwardxe2x80x9d and the like have reference to the forward drilling direction. The term xe2x80x9cback and forthxe2x80x9d has reference to movements in the forward/rearward direction. The term xe2x80x9cside-to-sidexe2x80x9d is used with reference to movements transverse to that direction, i.e., from side-to-side as experienced by an operator behind the rock drill.